easy chive blossom vinegar recipe.
if you’ve been sitting around wondering how to use more of the chives from the garden you started during quarantine, then this post is for you! if you’ve somehow stumbled upon this post by accident, it’s your lucky day because you too can learn how to use your chive blossoms to make vinegar! (do you have chive blossoms? do you know what chives are? are you wondering what internet rabbit hole brought you here? that’s okay too.)
when i started gardening, i wanted to be able to actually use the things i was growing in my garden. we inherited a beautiful garden when we moved into our house three years ago, and luckily for us, many of the plants come back year after year. one of the hardiest plants are the chives. for some reason, the previous owners planted three of these (apparently impossible to kill) beauties and my challenge was figuring out what to do with all of the bounty. we don’t eat a lot of chives in our house (who does really?) so other than snipping some for an occasional marinade or salad, or freeze-drying a bunch to use in the winter months, i was at a loss.
as luck would have it, one of my husband’s coworkers gifted us with a jar of chive blossom vinegar our second summer here and i had my answer. this is my second time making it with our chive blossom harvest and having gifted it to many friends and family, i can tell you that it’s a winner. i use it on my daily lunch salads, in place of onions+red wine vinegar in my summer panzanella salad, or with olive oil to dip bread in. you can really use it anyplace that you’d normally use red wine vinegar, or where you want a hint of onion/chive flavor without the onions/chives themselves.
let me know if you try this one out! at the bottom of the post, i also included an instagram reel i made so you can see the process from start to finish (it took an embarrassingly long time to make because i’m a geriatric millennial, don’t judge me.)
chive blossom vinegar (yield varies)
fully bloomed chive blossoms, as many as you have
white vinegar
clean mason jars with lids
strainer
funnel (optional, unless you’re incapable of pouring liquid without making a mess like i am)
jars or bottles of choice to store vinegar (i use these bottles, which come with a reusable silicone funnel)
collect your chive blossoms from your chive plants by plucking them off at the base of the blossom. rinse them well in a sieve and pat dry with a clean towel. pack the blossoms snugly into clean mason jars (see photo above). cover the blossoms with white vinegar, then put the lids on tightly. store in a cool, dark place for two weeks. the vinegar will have turned a deep magenta color. strain the chive blossoms from the vinegar into a bowl or large measuring cup and discard. pour the vinegar into the final storage jar or bottle with the funnel (or no funnel if you want to live life on the edge).
note: there are no specific measurements for this recipe, because it’s impossible to say how many blossoms you’ll have or how many blossoms will fill a mason jar. for reference, a modest batch of blossoms yielded enough to fill 64 oz. worth of mason jars, which in turn was enough vinegar to fill 5-6 vinegar bottles.
uses: in place of red wine vinegar in any recipe, with oil and salt on a simple lettuce salad, in a panzanella salad, or with olive oil to dip bread in.
